Finding the Weapons
by INMH
Summary: Balthazar hunts down the angelic weapons during The French Mistake. Crossover with House MD, NCIS, Battlestar Galactica: 2003, Odyssey 5, Psych, Hot in Cleveland, Fringe and Harry Potter.


Finding the Weapons

Rating: PG-13/T

Genre: Humor

Summary: "You see, they were so well hidden that I needed _time_ to find them." Balthazar hunts down the angelic weapons during The French Mistake. Crossover with House MD, NCIS, Battlestar Galactica: 2003, Odyssey 5, Psych, Hot in Cleveland, Fringe and Harry Potter.

Author's Note: The possibilities behind the idea that Balthazar actually needed to hunt down the weapons that _he_ stole and hid tickled me ever since The French Mistake aired. And now you get this.

Disclaimer: Oh geez. I don't own any of the fandoms in here: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, House MD belongs to… FOX, NCIS belongs to… CBS? I think? Or Donald Bellisario. One of them. Psych belongs to USA, Fringe belongs to FOX, Battlestar Galactica belongs to someone who is not me, Odyssey 5 belongs to Manny Coto, Hot in Cleveland belongs to… TVLand? And if you don't know who owns Harry Potter you've been under a damn rock for the past twenty years.

()()

Atropos didn't need to sleep.

That didn't mean she didn't indulge every now and then, though.

One common link between every being of every species, be it vampire, human, werewolf, angel, demon, pagan god, was that even if you didn't need to sleep, didn't need to refuel in that way, you did _not_ like being woken up out of the blue. Especially for bullshit.

In Atropos' case, _angelic_ bullshit.

And so when, at one AM, Lachesis roused her awake, Atropos swore that, sister or not, she had better have a _damn_ good reason for it.

"Aisa, wake up." The blonde Fate opened one eye and looked flatly up at her sister.

"What?"

"There's someone in the house."

Atropos took a moment to process that, but then sat bolt upright. "What?"

"There's someone in the house."

"Who? A burglar?"

"I don't know who else would be stupid enough." True enough. Only a human, ignorant to who the occupants of the house _were_, would be stupid enough to try and break in. Atropos sensed that she was about to commit her first real-time murder in over five centuries. She got out of bed.

"Where's Clotho?"

"She's getting the bat."

"Why the bat?"

"She likes the bat. She says the cracking sound it makes when it hits bone makes her feel all warm and tingly inside." Atropos pinched the bridge of her nose, for once unhindered by her glasses (they were for show more than anything else, her vision was more or less perfect). A common misconception amongst the students of classical mythology was that because Clotho was the youngest and was responsible for spinning the thread of life, she was the easiest and sweetest (comparatively) of the Moirae.

In actuality, if Clotho were not her sister, Atropos would have dubbed her a little psychopath with a nasty temper when baited.

Atropos followed Lachesis into the hall, moving towards the library where they kept the numerous books, records of various people and their destinies over the past several millennia. As they approached, Clotho came around the corner at the end of the hall, twirling a wooden bat in her right hand. She waved it a little at her sisters, then pointed it towards the library.

There were rustling and shuffling noises audible from the library, and Atropos was suddenly alarmed. Was it possible that their guest was aware of what they were and trying to steal information about somebody's fate? If so, then they needed to put a stop to this here and now. That sort of information was dangerous in the wrong hands.

Without preamble, Atropos pushed open the door and stepped inside, followed by Clotho and Lachesis. The room was dark, the lights extinguished for the night, and they saw a shadow crouching near the back of the room, against the wall that, curiously, was below a low window and therefore did not have a section of bookshelf against it.

Without waiting for further instruction, Clotho was across the room in a split second, and before her sisters could stop her, they saw her silhouette swing the bat back and then bring it back down to collide with the shadow's head.

_**THWACK.**_

"_**OW! BLOODY-**_"

Atropos and Lachesis exchanged looks. They recognized that voice. Clotho did too, apparently, because she froze in mid-swing again.

"Balthazar?" They heard her ask.

"_Yes!_" Was the indignant squawk.

"Oh." Clotho said. There was a pause, then-

_**THWACK.**_

"_**FUCKING-**_ _WHAT WAS THAT FOR?_"

"Because you're Balthazar." Was Clotho's impetuous response. Lachesis had the good sense to turn on the lights then, and the room was illuminated. Clotho was holding the bat down by her side, one hand on the sporting good and the other on her hip. Balthazar was cradling his head; Clotho was a goddess, and therefore had a certain power boost over the average supernatural being.

"Balthazar- What are you doing here?" Lachesis asked. Of the three, she was usually the one with the least amount of hostility towards Balthazar; with any luck, that might change in the near future.

"Never mind what he's doing here, get him the hell out!" Clotho snapped.

"Oh, you're just the sweetest little peach you've always been, Clotho. I'll bet every time you breathe you exhale glitter and sunshine." Was the angel's snarky retort, though he flinched when Clotho feigned another swing at his head.

"Answer the question," Atropos snapped. Balthazar straightened up, and for the first time in a long time, he looked like he'd been put on the spot. Atropos _savored_ that for a moment: Balthazar was not a man who was easily made uncomfortable. "You have one minute, or I let Clotho go at you again."

"Oh, come on now, Aisa, I thought we were friends."

"Fifty seconds."

"You know you really do look lovely when you're irritated."

"Forty-three."

"Would you believe me if I said that it was super-secret angel-business and that if I told you I'd have to kill you?"

"No. Thirty-one seconds."

"You have no sense of humor, Atropos, I mean really: For a woman who once killed a man using a tampon and a slide whistle-"

"Seven, six, five, four, three-"

"All right, all right!" Balthazar waved his hands. "I'll cut to the chase: A little while ago, I… Ah… _Hid_ something in your house. Something important." Atropos' stare darkened considerably.

"_Angelic-weaponry_-important?" She asked dangerously, and Balthazar quickly shook his head.

"No, no, no, no, no, no. Not quite. I hid a key. It's right…" He turned back and forth for a moment, looking over the wooden floor and finally kneeling down. "Right here." He pried the floorboard up, reached into the resulting hole and pulled out a small, brass key, holding it up for the sisters to see. "See? Wasn't doing anything wrong."

"You broke into our home to _hide_ something," Lachesis said in disbelief, "And then you broke in again to get it back. What part of that is not _wrong?_"

"The… Part where I didn't tell you I was doing it?" Balthazar inquired as though he honestly had no idea what the right answer was.

"How about the part where you should have _asked_ us for _permission_ first?" Lachesis fumed, arms crossed. Balthazar scoffed.

"Would you have said yes?"

"NO." All three sisters snapped at once.

"Well, there you go!"

"What is that-" Clotho waved the bat vaguely at the key. "-for anyway?"

"Oh, this? This is a key. It's for a lock, which is traditionally matched to a key, the only exception being the lock on Atropos' chastity belt, because _God_ knows I've tried-"

"GET OUT!"

()()

"It could be lupus."

"It's not lupus."

"But she has the symptoms."

"It's never lupus."

"Just because you don't _want_ it to be lupus doesn't mean it's not lupus, House." Ooh, goody: Thirteen was using her angry voice. The night had barely begun and already it was getting fun.

Suddenly, there was a sound like flapping wings and a gust from the direction of his office door, and Balthazar came waltzing in.

Knowing who House is and knowing who Balthazar is, certain people may be curious as to how they know one another. The actual story of their meeting involves a lengthy narrative involving a bar, three hundred shots of tequila (eighteen of which were body shots), two dozen rice balls, a large crate of ripe mangos, four complaints of property damage and fifteen of public indecency. One does not need to know the story, but rather the outcome, which involved House and Balthazar being BFFs "for, like, _ever_."

"Hello House," Balthazar said breezily as he strode into the room. "You mind if I tear out the back of your bookcase?"

"Go right ahead: It's actually Cuddy's." House smiled an utterly serene smile at the expression he knew would grace Lisa Cuddy's face if and when she came into his office and found the bookcase torn to pieces.

"Who's he?" Chase asked, eyes flipping back and forth between House and Balthazar, who was currently maneuvering around the table he, Thirteen, Foreman and Taub were seated at to get to the shelf. Taub quickly got up and moved out of the way.

"My BFF Balthazar. Say hi, Balthazar."

"Hi, Balthazar." Came the easy response even as he gripped the wood and a horrible crunching noise made everyone but House wince.

"What the hell are you doing?" Thirteen asked, eyes wide, before pivoting the chair to face House again. "Let me guess: You met him at Mayfield."

"_EH!_" House imitated a buzzer. "_Wrong_. I met him at a bar."

"Even better." Foreman muttered.

"Just looking for a little trinket I hid back here. Won't be more than a minute."

"By all means, stay!" House invited enthusiastically. "We were about to give the patient an MRI. Those always turn out fun."

"He's destroyed three of them." Foreman said flatly. Balthazar retrieved the box he was looking for and turned to face House.

"Three? Really? House, you've upped your score! Congratulations!"

"I consider it a personal achievement that will be with me for the remainder of my life. Sure you can't stay? I was just about to prove the guy doesn't have lupus."

"Because it's never lupus." Balthazar nodded sagely.

"See? He gets it!" Thirteen rolled her eyes.

"Sorry old fellow, but I have to be going. Drinks next Friday?"

"I'll bring Wilson."

"Designated driver?"

"No- I just want you to see what he can do with a beer bottle when he's pissed."

()()

"Who is that guy, and why is he at Ziva's desk?"

DiNozzo and McGee stood a safe distance away from the man who had just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and began rifling through Ziva David's desk.

"I have no idea." DiNozzo muttered. "He might be psychotic."

"Should we be, like- Stopping him, maybe? He's looking through a government agent's desk." DiNozzo nodded.

"You're right, Probie. Go tell him." McGee's eyes widened.

"Wait- What? Why do I have to?"

"Your idea."

"You have a gun!"

"So do you."

"It's in my desk!"

"Well then, go get it!"

"Ziva, would you like to explain to me why there's a man picking through your desk drawer?" Ziva and Gibbs came around the corner and stopped just by DiNozzo and McGee. Ziva hesitated, and then her eyes widened.

"Balthazar?" She walked right up to him as he turned around. "What are you doing? How did you even get _in_ here? This building has restricted access." Balthazar grinned.

"Oh come on, Ziva, you know the phrase "restricted access" means little to me." And then he went right back to searching her desk, pulling open another drawer and shuffling the contents about. "So what are you up to?"

Gibbs, DiNozzo and McGee saw that Ziva was fingering the Star of David around her neck and gritting her teeth. "At the moment? Resisting the urge to pummel you into the ground."

"I've been getting a lot of that tonight, actually. First Virgil, then Atropos and her sisters, now you. You know you'd only break your hand?"

"I'm aware of that. Balthazar, _what_ are you doing?"

"Looking for something. Do still have that box I asked you to keep for me? The, uh," Balthazar straightened up, snapping his fingers as he searched for the memory. "The wooden one with the rosette pattern on it?" Ziva blinked.

"Ah- Yes. I do. It's at my apartment-"

As soon as she said that, he was gone.

DiNozzo and McGee stared. "Whoa- Hey- What the-?"

"Where the heck did he go?"

Gibbs just stared flatly. "Do I want to know, Ziva?"

"No you do not, Gibbs."

"That's what I thought." He grabbed his jacket. "Dead Marine: Let's go."

()()

It was an hour or two before dawn when Kali awoke to the sound of someone knocking on her door.

The goddess opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for a moment.

She didn't get many visitors. The ones that she did get rarely, if ever, knocked first: Usually they just teleported or flew inside, whether she approved of that kind of arrival or not.

For a moment, she debated on whether or not she should kill whoever was at the door (she did not strictly require sleep, but all the same did not like being woken in the middle of it) or answering it and asking them what they wanted, purely for the sake of satisfying her now morbid curiosity as to why _anyone_ would be knocking on her door at some ungodly hour of the morning, especially if they happened to know who she was.

The knocking resumed after a five minute break, and Kali figured that she would decide her course of action when she got to the door. It might end peacefully, or it might end with a charred corpse on her doorstep: Either way, she intended on getting an answer before doing so.

When she tore open the door, eyes narrowed, and saw that it was a man and only seconds later realizing that he was, in fact, an angel, she briefly considered torching him right then and there and skipping the conversation. She had yet to meet an angel that didn't bring more trouble than he was worth.

"Hello, Madam," She cocked an eyebrow at his politeness. "A few months ago you received a package from an anonymous sender requesting that you hold onto said package until a day came when the sender of said package might come to-"

Kali held up a hand to cut him off.

Then, without another word, she crossed over to her dresser, opened a drawer, shuffled the contents around a bit and then pulled out a box, tossing it to Balthazar one-handed. "There. Now get out before you cause me even greater trouble than your older brother did."

Balthazar grinned almost apologetically. "Thank you, ma'am."

()()

Gaius Baltar had already accepted the fact that he was a little unhinged.

He was healing children, having visions and holding full-blown conversations with his only-seen-by-him doppelganger.

So the appearance of a man, literally out of thin air, spitting out some cock-and-bull story about being a high-powered supernatural being from another universe did not alarm him as much as perhaps it should have.

"Have you seen that guy that looks a lot like me?"

Balthazar glanced at Baltar as he continued to tear apart the room in search of the box. "Like you? No, you're the only version of you I've seen thus far."

"Huh. I thought maybe the figments of my imagination would all be familiar with one another, but apparently not."

Balthazar sighed and turned to face him. "I _told_ you, I'm not a hallucination: I'm an angel from a parallel world that is basically a later version of the earth _you're_ going to encounter in a little while, and I'm looking for something I stashed in your little hideaway here a time ago."

"Right, of course. And I'm a floppy-eared bunny with a tail of gold."

For a moment, Balthazar had to halt his search, shut his eyes and take a deep breath, because the urge to snap his fingers and make Baltar's description come true was absolutely overwhelming. Baltar with droopy ears… A fuzzy little golden tail… He could bring him up to President Roslin and tell her that her troubles with the former president were over. He did so love to make women happy from time to time.

Balthazar shook his head. Business before pleasure. Business before pleasure.

Damn it, he hadn't needed to use that mantra in over a year.

"Yes you are, Baltar. Now go back to sleep."

Baltar continued to watch him, though, idly wondering if he'd drunken something he shouldn't have, or if maybe his food had been spiked with some kind of hallucinogen. Maybe this was just a new stage of madness.

"I don't suppose you're a Cylon?"

Balthazar rolled his eyes and threw his hands up. "There _are_ other creatures in this universe that are, in fact, _infinitely_ more dangerous than Cylons, you know that, right? And that not every person you do not personally recognize who happens to be acting strangely is necessarily a Cylon infiltrator?"

"They usually are."

"And _that_," Balthazar said pointedly as he retrieved a small box from one of the metal rafters in the room, which had previously been hidden by a red blanket (How they'd managed to get their living quarters this messy was beyond him). "Is precisely the attitude that will get the lot of you eaten by werewolves in the new world. Hope you have a blast. And lay off the women, man, some of them have STDs."

()()

"Kurt, where the hell have you _been?_ You've been missing for months!" Chuck Taggart railed as Balthazar proceeded to tear Dr. Kurt Mendel's apartment apart in search of the box.

"Sorry Chucky, but Kurt's not home right now. Would you like to leave a message at the beep?"

"You're whackier than before."

"And twice as horny."

"_Jesus_." Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose. "Humor me: If you're not Kurt, then who are you?" Balthazar turned on his heel to face the irked astronaut.

"My name is Balthazar, and I'm an Angel of the Lord." He flapped his arms a little. "Whoosh-whoosh, wings, wings, sparkle, sparkle, Come All Ye Faithful and what have you." He then promptly turned back around and went back to searching. As part of his security defense, he had actually removed some of his own memory in regards to the precise placement of some of the boxes, only giving himself a general area.

"Okay- So, pretending for a moment that you haven't finally lost what sanity you managed to retain-"

"True enough."

"-Explain to me, then, how you managed to find the _one_ angel in the universe that actually sounds a lot like you?"

"Did it occur to you that _I_ might have found _Kurt?_ And really, if you'd been in the bloody _convent_ that is the Host of Heaven for several hundred millennia, you'd want to get laid, do drugs, get laid, drink and get laid and gamble and get _laid_ a lot too, wouldn't you?"

Chuck sucked in a deep breath. "All right then, _Balthazar_: Did Kurt bother to tell you that we had something of a mission we had to complete within the next, as it stands, _four_ years now?"

"Actually, he did. Bingo!" Balthazar finally located the box in the unplugged microwave. He turned back to Chuck one last time. "Spoiler-Alert, Chuck: My brother, Raphael, is way too big of a _control freak_ to let WALL-E destroy the planet. He wants Michael and Lucifer to do that. So relax: No robot-apocalypse. Just the biblical one."

He disappeared, and Chuck wondered if maybe he should just check himself into the nearest psych ward for a couple of days.

()()

Shawn Spencer was in a bind.

Literally.

"So do we shoot them or leave them here?" The masked man to the right- Bernard Black, a drug dealer Shawn and Gus had tracked down in the hopes of solving the murder of one of Black's customers- glared at the one to the left, whose name they did not know, who had spoken.

"We don't just _leave_ them here, dumbass- If they get loose they'll call the cops."

"So we're gonna, like… Kill them?"

Gus turned to Shawn. "Shawn, I think they're _gonna_- _like_- kill us, so if you have some kind of crazy-stupid plan to get us out of this-"

"What do you mean 'crazy-stupid plan'? My plans are _brilliant_."

"Your plans are _stupid_, Shawn. And you know how I know? Because it was _your_ idea to rush into the abandoned apartment buildings-"

"Tenements, Gus, tenements, that colorful old timer we met outside was very specific as to the proper name for this building and its neighbors."

"_Whatever!_ The point is it was _your_ idea to rush in here without calling for backup first!"

A gust of wind and the rustling of feathers interrupted them.

"Hello boys," Balthazar strode right on past the bound Shawn and Gus, as well as the two stunned criminals. "I'll be out of your hair in a moment."

"Who the heck are you?" Before Balthazar could answer (most likely with a witty rejoinder), the nameless thug raised his gun and fired off two shots that only succeeded in damaging Balthazar's jacket. The angel barely took notice.

"No one you need concern yourself with," He said mildly, grabbing the cord of a wall-phone and proceeding to tear it from the wall, taking a sizeable chunk of plaster along with it. He rummaged through what were undoubtedly asbestos-soaked walls until he finally unearthed a small wooden box. "I'll be going now."

"Dude! Untie us!" Gus squawked.

"Oh, you'll be fine, you always are." Balthazar rolled his eyes and then disappeared in another gust of wind, leaving Shawn and Gus open-mouthed and horrified and their captors stunned and oddly satisfied.

"Who was that?"

"Our guardian angel." Shawn said.

"Our guardian _jackass._" Gus groaned.

"Well, how's about this-" Black twisted the silencer onto the end of his gun. "-in a few minutes, you'll be up in heaven and you can kick his ass _personally_."

(They were fine. It turned out that that 'colorful old timer' Shawn and Gus had met outside was an undercover cop and had run to the nearest phone when he'd saw them rush in. Whether or not Balthazar was aware of that when he left them remains to be seen).

()()

"My, my, who is _that?_" Melanie breathed.

"He's cute." Victoria cooed.

"He's _hot_." Joy snorted.

"He's an angel, so back off you lustful whores." Elka entered from the kitchen, carrying a small wooden box. Balthazar smiled sweetly at her before directing a look far lustier in its associations towards the astonished women.

"Oh no worries, Elka," He drawled. "The Host isn't half as strict as we used to be."

"Oh." Elka thought for a moment as she handed the box over to him. "In that case, what are you doing next week, hot stuff?"

Balthazar grinned. "Hopefully? Breathing. Thank you kindly, Elka, and ladies-" He winked at them. "It was a pleasure."

()()

"So… She really watches Spongebob?" Olivia Dunham blinked. Peter Bishop nodded sagely and held up a finger.

"Watch."

He walked over to the TV situated near Gene the Cow's pen and flipped it on. Immediately, Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick Star were visible darting across the screen, screaming about jelly-fishing. Gene's head immediately turned in search of the sounds, and once she located the scene, she didn't move an inch.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" Walter Bishop sang, and Olivia and Peter weren't quite certain if he was referring to the cartoon or the fact that it evidently was very interesting to the lab-cow.

"Absolutely stunning," An alarmingly familiar voice remarked, and Olivia and the two Bishops turned in time to see a man striding right past them to the wall beside Gene's pen. "Don't mind me, visitor from a parallel universe: Don't worry, not a Shapeshifter. I just need to blow a hole in your wall and I'll be gone."

Balthazar promptly pried a table away from the wall, dug his fingers into the wall and proceeded to tear a chunk away, the rock-solid material crumbling under his hands like a cheap pastry. After a moment of scraping and digging, he pulled out a small box with a lock on it. He turned to the Fringe team, smiled and held up the box. "Thank you, and good night."

He disappeared into thin air.

For a moment, everyone was silent.

Peter blinked. "Was it just me, or did Newton just waltz in here and punch a hole through a concrete wall?"

()()

Harry Potter saw the name 'Balthazar' on the Marauder's Map one night and groaned.

"Bloody _hell_."

It was with a sigh that he heaved the invisibility cloak over his shoulders and set off down to the third floor corridor. Ron was dead to the world, and even if he'd been awake, Harry wouldn't have subjected him to another meeting with Balthazar; the last one had ended in Ron slow-dancing with the Giant Squid (For a time, Harry's dreams about the hallway in the Department of Mysteries had taken a backseat to some far more disturbing dreams following that).

The room in which Fluffy had been contained was currently unused, but when Harry got inside, he saw someone nauseatingly familiar prying open the trap door that led down into the gauntlet from hell.

"I thought Dumbledore asked you not to come back here," He said flatly as he tugged the cloak off. Balthazar did not seem alarmed or surprised at Harry's sudden appearance.

"Correction: He said not to come back during operational hours unless dire need struck me, and even then to consider carefully if the situation was dire need. Did Neville's hair grow back?"

"After several experimental potions, yes."

"Ah, good for him then." Balthazar disappeared, not having to actually jump to get anywhere, and Harry quickly dove down the hole after him. It was only when he was in the process of being strangled by what remained of the Devil's Snare that he recalled why this was not his favorite part of the castle.

After whacking the deadly plant away, Harry followed Balthazar as the angel plowed through the next several rooms, causing the living chess pieces to cower and the flying keys to scatter. Harry, meanwhile, was having flashbacks like you wouldn't believe; Oh to recall the days when magic was relatively _simple_.

"What are you doing here anyway?"

"Oh, I just hid a little something down here for safe-keeping not long after I left heaven. Hogwarts _is_ the safest place to hide something, no? Tormenting you lot was just a bonus of visiting the castle."

"Good to know we were so amusing, then!" Harry snapped. Hermione still trembled when she saw pomegranates. Professor McGonagall had actually asked the House Elves to make sure none of said fruits ended up on the Gryffindor table in the morning; along with any undercooked meats (That was Ginny's traumatic experience).

"Oh you _were!_" Balthazar waved the fire away in the last room and turned to see Harry glaring at him moodily. "Come now, Harry, the angst-ridden teenage look is silly on you. Look on the bright side: You and ninety percent of the planet were supposed to be dead by now in a blaze of fiery angelic bitch-slapping."

Harry was unmoved, and Balthazar sighed. The kid was a Good Kid, the kind of human that Balthazar found to be surprisingly tolerable and even likeable (A nice change from the likes of Dean Winchester), and what little decency was left in him hated that he'd pissed the kid off so badly.

"All right, all right, how about this: As a peace-offering, I will pull a delightful prank using any of my chosen powers as you would so deign to be used. You will have absolutely nothing traced back to you, and you'll get to see someone you despise suffer in ways they would never manage to otherwise. Deal?"

Harry thought about that for a moment, and then grinned.

"Deal!"

And so it was that the next day at Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge found herself tied to the ceiling of the Great Hall, Cornish Pixies whacking her with rotting tuna fish whilst a hundred portraits of Gilderoy Lockhart babbled on about their wonderful hair/teeth/awards/magic ability/romantic life.

It was a good day at Hogwarts.

()()

"Oh _Lord,_ it was the scavenger hunt from _hell!_"

Balthazar groused as he slumped down onto the bench in Castiel's preferred heaven. Rachel gave him a highly unsympathetic look.

"If you hadn't stolen the weapons in the first place, then you wouldn't have had to go through so much trouble keeping them hidden." She said simply.

"_If you hadn't stolen the weapons you wouldn't have had to blah blah blah_," Balthazar mocked her in a falsetto. Rachel shrugged and primly folded her hands, and Balthazar hated it when she did that, especially with that look on her face, because it all clearly conveyed 'Mock me all you want, you know I'm right'.

And she was. Kind of. But hell if he would admit that. You don't admit it when your little sister is right about that kind of thing; it's a matter of pride not solely typical to human males.

Castiel reappeared then with an 'I-Just-Narrowly-Escaped-A-Winchester-Style-Interrogation-Complete-With-Sam's-Bitch-Face-And-Dean's-Ingratitude' expression written all over his face. He regarded his siblings wearily.

"Hello Rachel, Balthazar." His gaze lingered on his brother. "Thank you again for the weapons, brother."

"No problem, no problem, Cas," Balthazar sighed. "You know I never could resist you when you gave me that puppy-dog stare. Have you tried it on Raphael? You might yet convince him to cease his efforts." Castiel's smile was brief and weak, but honest. Rachel might have chuckled.

Given the circumstances, he was satisfied with the amusement he'd provided them. Balthazar hopped up off the bench. "Well, it's been a hoot. If you'll excuse me, I need to go look into any and all elements that might be harmful to the Fates." Rachel's brow furrowed.

"Why?"

"I'll relate the full details to you later, dear: All you need to know for now is that I owe Clotho one _really_ big goose-egg. Ciao."

-End


End file.
